Super Hero Party

  My little Monkey just turned 3!!! On his birthday, we did our usual birthday traditions. There were sprinkle pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast and dinner with ALL 8, yes 8, grandparents at the restaurant of his choice. This year we wound up at a hibachi steak house. He was totally enthralled with the chef and the fire!

  For his party, we planned a super hero theme party. I started working on it months ago, knowing that I was going to have a new baby when September rolled around. There are tons of cute ideas floating around the interswebs for Super Hero/Avengers themed parties, just look at my Pinterest board. The back drop is a shower curtain from Target. I stole the idea from The Thriftress. I found this link and made them into a banner. We had some of the serving platters but the rest were bought at The Dollar Tree, where I also bought all the candy for the goody bags. We happened upon Avengers and Justice League candy that we gave out in little cello bags tied with black ribbon. I forgot to snap a pic of them, though they were super cute. The plates and napkins were from the clearance section of Walmart and the little buckets holding the forks were Avenger's from the Dollar Spot at Target. 

 We all wore super hero themed t-shirts even little bitty baby brother. :) 

Caleb chose a Spider-man shirt, I wore Wonder Woman, Lee naturally went for his favorite Green Lantern and Liam had on Captain America.  

 I made the menu by starting with Caleb's favorite super heroes and then made matching menu cards. 

The menu included:

Captain America's Patriotic Cake

There two flavors of cake, Lemon and Strawberry both at the birthday boys request. 

Spider-man's Webbed Cupcakes

I actually followed a recipe from start to finish with this one and it they were AMAZING!

Sweetapolita's Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes with Nutella Cloud Frosting

Batman's Jello Bombs

On this one, we followed the recipe and made it in Batman colors. Lee and Caleb made them and it was a great recipe to do with kids. They mixed 2 grape jellos with 1 orange and added some black gel food coloring to get the black and added a bit of the black coloring to the cream gelatin mixture to get gray. The jello tasted like a creamy fruit punch flavor and were very yummy! 

Food Librarian's Broken Glass Jello

Iron Man's Arc Reactor

These are sooooo addictive! We went through approximately 150 of these! Luckily for me, my Mother-in-Law is clairvoyant and knew I was nuts for thinking that we need like a third of those and made three batches! 

Iowa Girls Eats' Mini Corn Dog Muffins

Green Lantern's Veggie Constructs and Power Battery Dip

The veggies are self explanatory and the dips were Hidden Valley Fiesta Ranch Dip and Baba Ganoush, which is an eggplant dip. My Mom made it and I don't have the recipe yet but I'll be making it again soon and there will most likely be a post about it. 

Thor's Mighty Mjolnir (Hammer)

These were cheese cubes with pretzel stick for the handle. One thing we learned was that you want to make these fairly close to time to serve them the pretzel gets very stale from the cheese if they sit out too long.

Wolverine's Shredded Chex Mix

 Chex Lemon Buddies

This one is going to become a regular at family get togethers from now on. It is SOOOOOO good!

Aquaman's Atlantis Cooler

Ok, you got me. It's just water, but the hubby thinks that Aquaman gets a bum wrap so I had to add him in there to show off his awesomeness! ;-)

Scarlet Witch's Brew

LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff! There is not a real recipe because it depends on the sweetness of your watermelon. This time my Brother-in-Law made it with little to no instruction and it was super good. You need Country Time Lemonade Mix, the juice of a water melon and a 1 liter Sprite just keep adding a little of each until you get the correct amount and right flavor.  

Hulk Smash Punch

You'll need:

4 3oz Green Apple Jello (we couldn't find Jello brand and used Jolly Rancher brand gelatin)

1 cup of sugar (trust me it needs it)

12 cups of water

2 46oz cans of Dole Pineapple Juice (or you could juice 2 pineapples if available)

2 liter Sprite

Bring water to a boil and mix in jello and sugar. Chill until time to serve, add in juice, sprite and serve. 

Caleb owns most of the super hero masks and accessories that are on the market so I dumped them into a bucket for kids to play with but it turned out more adults did than the kids. I wish I had time to make a photo booth... Maybe next year. 

Anyone who owned superhero shirts wore them.

Caleb got a bouncy house again this year. Thanks to grandparents who love him and spoil him rotten! He was in it from the time he got there until we left. He probably bounced a total of 5 hours! No exaggeration there! He bounced with anyone who would get in. I'm sure there were plenty of sore knees, legs and backs the next day! I'm not sure he would have eaten anything except Lee drug him out of it and made him a plate! 

  Needless to say, he had a great time and so did everyone else. I had so much help from Lee, my Mom, my Mother-in-law, Brother-in-law, Sister-in-law and my Bob (that's a long story) there's no way I could have pulled it off with out them. Although, other than the bouncy house it was pretty easy and very doable with a small budget! 

Circus Shower Part 2... The Recipes

Mocha Cupcake with 
Chocolate Ganache

For the cake:
*all ingredients  should be at room temperature

1/2 cup cocoa powder 
2/3 cup hot coffee 
2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate coarsely chopped
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain yogurt 
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine cocoa, coffee and chocolate, whisk until lumps dissolve. Set aside to cool. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating 1 minute after each. Add the vanilla. In a separete bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add half of dry mixture to butter mixture. Mix on low until well integrated. Add the yogurt and mix well. Add the remaining dry and mix until combined. Add the chocolate mix until blended but do not over mix. Fill liners and bake. Standard cupcakes bake 20-25 minutes, mini cupcakes bake 7-10 minutes.

For the ganache

1 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup chocolate finely chopped

Heat the cream over low heat and stir in chocolate. Let cool to room temperature. Dip the cupcakes in the ganache and decorate with sprinkles.

Lime Cupcake with 

White Chocolate Buttercream

For the cake:

*all ingredients should be at room temperature

1/2 lb of butter

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs 

3 cups AP flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons lime zest

2 tablespoons lime juice 

Preheat oven to 325 F. In large bowl cream butter and sugar using an electric mix for 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time beating 1 minute after each. In another bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt. In small bowl stir together milk and sour cream. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture alternating with milk mixture. Add lime juice and zest. Fill liners and bake. Standard cupcakes bake for 20 minutes, mini cupcakes bake for 7-10 minutes.

For the buttercream:

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

6-8 tablespoons butter (at room temperature)

3-9 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 1/2 to 5 cups confectioner sugar

Heat chips, 4 tablespoons of butter and 3 tablespoons of milk in a saucepan over medium heat until totally melted. In a mixer combine the white chocolate mixture with sugar and vanilla. Add more butter, milk and sugar as needed.

Fever Fudge 

(I renamed it Red Hot Fudge for the Shower)

This is actually a recipe that my sister found and is a take on "Fever Fudge" from the Harry Potter novels. She made it for our July 4th get together and asked her to make it for the shower. She made the vanilla and spicy version instead of the mint and spicy version. This time she added yellow to match the the theme. I think it was absolutely adorable. For the recipe go here. Don't be fooled by the bright colors it is very tasty and I think she has added it to her growing collection of go to recipes. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

If you have a major sweet tooth like me then these are going to rock your world! For the recipe go here and if you make them be prepared to over indulge!

Baby Boy Blue Punch

This punch is not only super easy but is surprisingly great tasting.  It is also very easily customized to any color palette. It is another one of those recipes that make you raise an eyebrow when you see it but trust me it is actually very good. 

1 bottle of White Cranberry or White Grape Juice

1 2 liter of Club Soda (or Lemon Lime Soda)

1 envelope of unsweetened blue powered drink mix (Koolaide)

1/2 a 48oz container of Vanilla Ice Cream

Chill the juice and soda before the party and just before serving mix juice, soda and drink mix then scoop ice cream on top and then serve.

Lemon Trifle

So for this recipes go here. I did leave the whipped cream off of these only because we ran out of time. They are good either way.

Snack Mix

It isn't much to look at but ap[paently is is quite good.

It is 1 lg bag of pretzels coated with white chocolate and nonpareils mixed with blueberry kettle corn and animal crackers. I didn't actually eat any but I was told it was a great pairing. I found the kettle corn at my local grocery store but you can order it at their website.

I don't have the recipe for the strawberry fluff because I keep losing it. I am going to get it and keep up with it this time because I am starting a family recipe scrapbook. I plan on doing a post about family recipes as soon also.

I bought the cupcake liners and mustache mold at bake it pretty. I love everything in their online shop!!!!